Clearly that owl is a reference to the owl who carries written messages in the Harry Potter series.

Google voice bills itself as a number that is "tied to you [the user]" instead of a device [like a phone]. Cueball is operating under the assumption that like begets like; that is, if I phone you, you are on a phone. Google voice negates this because it allows the user to control how messages reach the receipient. The comic takes this a step further and applies it to any method of communication Zim (talk) 12:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)zim

Can I coin the term "e-synaesthesia"? 178.104.103.140 13:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

If that were a Facebook post, I would *like* it. 138.162.8.57 14:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Pricing

Cueball's friend might just be avoiding expensive mediums. Because of how cellular carriers price their services in some countries, some plans charge far more for voice or SMS than for low-bandwidth data such as IRC or VoIP. Wired ISPs in many countries even offered unmetered data or close to it (Comcast's quarter TB per month). --Tepples (talk) 14:43, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

It is quite common that my mobile phone is off and reloading in another room, while I am actively engaged on my PC and receiving email immediately. So I kind of relate to the comic. With today's notification possibilities (SMS, Email, ...) and interconnected services (e.g. receive Facebook chat messages with a personalized facebook email address and be notified to another email of yours), this gets kind of confusing what is the individual's preferred way of communication. Sebastian --178.26.45.117 17:19, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Nah, they simply trained the owl to go to this place. It's not like their time was limited, they already send the owl in a way it appeared just after the voicemail was sent, which suggest they send it BEFORE the voicemail started as owls are not really able to move at speed comparable to wireless signal. -- Hkmaly (talk) 07:51, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Audible email

On the contrary, standard unix behaviour is to make a noise when email arrives. Only it's a single short beep of ctrl+G and computer must be running for it to be played, so it's not really probable it would wake up someone ... at least not if they are sleeping at bed. It may wake up someone dozing off while sitting at the computer. -- Hkmaly (talk) 07:55, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The iPhone (and I imagine any smartphone) sounds an audible tone when an email comes in, and many of us sleep with the phone very near the bed. Gardnertoo (talk) 16:02, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, most Android phones do that, too, by default, so unless you change the settings or put your phone silent in the night, getting woken up by email is actually not that unusual. (Luckily we have good spam filters today, otherwise sleeping near a smartphone would be a real problem.) -- 79.235.250.118 09:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Communication

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. George Bernard Shaw 200.70.22.74 12:47, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I removed the incomplete tag, as the explanation was more thorough than many complete ones. The only thing it needs is a link to the (3-5?) other comics that mentioned RFC. --Quicksilver (talk) 21:38, 25 August 2013 (UTC)